The Powers and Maxine Part 22

He's sure to come out of this all right."

Poor Lord Robert! I hadn't much thought to give him then; but dimly I felt that his anxiety was concerned with me even more than with Ivor, of whom he spoke so kindly, though he had often shown signs of jealousy in past days.

I felt stunned, and almost dazed. If anyone had spoken to me, I think I should have been dumb, unable to answer; but n.o.body did speak, or seem to think it strange that I had nothing to say.

"I suppose you won't try to do anything until after lunch, will you, Mountstuart?" Lord Robert went on to ask.

"No, we must eat, and talk things over," said Uncle Eric.

We went into the restaurant, I moving as if I were in a dream. Ivor accused of murder! What had he done? What could have happened?

But I was soon to know. As soon as we were seated at a table, where the lovely, fresh flowers seemed a mockery, Aunt Lil began asking questions.

For some reason, Uncle Eric apparently did not like answering. It was almost as if he had had some kind of previous knowledge of the affair, of which he didn't wish to speak. But, I suppose, it could not have been that.

It was Lord Robert who told us nearly everything; and always I was conscious that he was watching me, wondering if this were a cruel blow for me, asking himself if he were speaking in a tactful way of one who had been his rival.

"There was that engagement of Dundas' last night, which he was just going to keep when we saw him," said Lord Bob, carefully, but clumsily.

"I'm afraid there must have been something fishy about that--I mean, some trap must have been laid to catch him. And, it seems, he wasn't supposed to be in Paris--though I don't see what that can have to do with the plot, if there is one. He was stopping in the hotel under another name. No doubt he had some good reason, though. There's nothing sly about Dundas. If ever there was a plucky chap, he's one. Anyhow, apparently, he wanted to get hold of a man in Paris he couldn't find, for he called last evening on a detective named Girard, a rather well-known fellow in his line, I believe. It almost looks as if Dundas had made an enemy of him, for he's been giving evidence pretty freely to the police--lost no time about it, anyhow. Girard says he was following up the scent, tracking down the person he'd been hired by Dundas to hunt for, and had at last come to the house where he was lodging, when there he found Dundas himself, ransacking the room, covered with blood, and the chap who was wanted, lying dead on the floor, his body hardly cold."

"What time was all that?" enquired Lisa sharply. It was the first question she had asked.

"Between midnight and one o'clock, I think the papers said," answered Lord Bob.

"Well, of course it's all nonsense," exclaimed Aunt Lil impatiently.

"French people are so sensational, and they jump at conclusions so. The idea of their daring to accuse a man like Ivor Dundas of murder! They ought to know better. They'll soon be eating humble-pie, and begging England's pardon for wrongful treatment of a British subject, won't they, Eric?"

"I'm afraid there's no question of jumping at conclusions on the part of the authorities, or of eating humble-pie," Uncle Eric said. "The evidence--entirely circ.u.mstantial so far, luckily--is dead against Ivor.

And as for his being a British subject, there's nothing in that. If an Englishman chooses to commit a murder in France, he's left to the French law to deal with, as if he were a Frenchman."

"But Ivor hasn't committed murder!" cried Aunt Lilian, horrified.

"Of course not. But he's got to prove that he hasn't. And in that he's worse off than if this thing happened in England. English law supposes a man innocent until he's been proved guilty. French law, on the contrary, presumes that he's guilty until he's proved innocent. In face of the evidence against Ivor, the authorities couldn't have done otherwise than they have done."

For the first time in my life I felt angry with Aunt Lilian's husband. I do hate that cold, stern "sense of justice" on which men pride themselves so much, whether it's an affair of a friend or an enemy!

"Surely Mr. Dundas must have been able to prove an--an--don't you call it an alibi?" asked Lisa.

"He didn't try to," replied Lord Bob. "He's simply refused, up to the present, to tell what he was doing between twelve o'clock and the time he was found, except to say that he walked for a good while before going to the house where Girard afterwards found him. Of course he denies killing the man: says the fellow had stolen something from him, on the boat crossing from Dover to Calais yesterday, and that after applying to the detective, he got a note from the thief, offering to give the thing back if he would call and name a reward. Says he found the room already ransacked and the fellow dead, when he arrived at the address given him; that he was searching for his property when Girard appeared on the scene."

"Couldn't he have shown the note sent by the thief?" asked Aunt Lil.

"He did show a note. But it does him more harm than good. And he wouldn't tell what the thing was the thief had taken from him, except that it was valuable. It does look as if he were determined to make the case as black as possible against himself; but then, as I said before, no doubt he has good reasons."

"He has no good luck, anyhow!" sighed Aunt Lil, who always liked Ivor.

"Rather not--so far. Why, one of the worst bits of evidence against him is that the concierge of this house in the Rue de la Fille Sauvage swears that though Dundas hadn't been in the place much above half an hour when the detective arrived, he was there then _for the second time_, that he admitted it when he came. The first visit he made, according to the concierge, was about an hour before the second: the concierge was already in bed in his little box, but not asleep, when a man rang and an English-sounding voice asked for Monsieur Gestre. On hearing that Gestre was away, the visitor said he would see the gentleman who was stopping in Gestre's room. By and by the Englishman went out, and on being challenged, said he might come back again later.

After a while the concierge was waked up once more by a caller for Gestre, who announced that he'd been before; and now he vows that it was the same man both times, though Dundas denies having called twice. If he could prove that he'd been in the house no more than half an hour, it might be all right, for two doctors agree that the murdered man had been dead more than an hour when they were called in. But he can't or won't prove it--that's his luck again!--and n.o.body can be found who saw him in any of the streets through which he mentions pa.s.sing. The last moment that he can be accounted for is when a cabman, who'd taken him up at the hotel just after he left us, set him down in the Rue de Courbvoie, not so very far from the elysee Palace. Then it was only between five and ten minutes past twelve, so he could easily have gone on to the Rue de la Fille Sauvage afterwards and killed his man at the time when the doctors say the fellow must have died. It's a bad sc.r.a.pe. But of course Dundas will get out of it somehow or other, in the end."

"Do _you_ think he will, Eric?" asked Aunt Lil.

"I hope so with all my heart," he answered. But his face showed that he was deeply troubled, and my heart sank down--down.

As I realised more and more the danger in which Ivor stood, my resentment against him began to seem curiously trivial. Nothing had happened to make me feel that I had done him an injustice in thinking he cared more for Maxine de Renzie than for me--indeed, on the contrary, everything went to prove his supreme loyalty to her whose name he had refused to speak, even for the sake of clearing himself. Still, now that the world was against him, my soul rushed to stand by his side, to defend him, to give him love and trust in spite of all.

Down deep in my heart I forgave him, even though he had been cruel, and I yearned over him with an exceeding tenderness. More than anything on earth, I wanted to help him; and I meant to try. Indeed, as the talk went on while that terrible meal progressed, I thought I saw a way to do it, if Lisa and I should act together.

I was so anxious to have a talk with her that I could hardly wait to get back to our own hotel, from the Ritz. Fortunately, n.o.body wanted to sit long at lunch, so it wasn't yet three when I called her into my room.

The men had gone to make different arrangements about starting, for we were not to leave Paris until they had had time to do something for Ivor. Uncle Eric went to see the British Amba.s.sador, and Aunt Lilian had said that she would be busy for at least an hour, writing letters and telegrams to cancel engagements we had had in London. For awhile Lisa and I were almost sure not to be interrupted; but I spoke out abruptly what was in my mind, not wis.h.i.+ng to lose a minute.

"I think the only thing for us to do," I said, "is to tell what we know, and save Ivor in spite of himself."

"How can anything you know save him?" she asked, with a queer, faint emphasis which I didn't understand.

"Don't you see," I cried, "that if we come forward and say we saw him in the Rue d'Hollande at a quarter past twelve--going into a house there--he couldn't have murdered the man in that other house, far away.

It all hangs on the time."

"But you didn't see him go in," Lisa contradicted me.

I stared at her. "_You_ did. Isn't it the same thing?"

"No, not unless I choose to say so."

"And--but you will choose. You want to save him, of course."

"Why?"

"Because he's innocent. Because he's your friend."

"No man is the friend of any woman, if he's in love with another."

"Oh, Lisa, does sophistry of that sort matter? Does anything matter except saving him?"

"I don't consider," she said, in a slow, aggravating way, "that Ivor Dundas has behaved very well to--to our family. But I want you to understand this, Di. If he is to be got out of this danger--no doubt it's real danger--in any such way as you propose, it's for _me_ to do it, not you. He'll have to owe his grat.i.tude to me. And there's something else I can do for him, perhaps--I, and only I. A thing of value was stolen from him, it seems, a thing he was anxious to get back at any price--even the price of looking for it on a dead man's body.

Well, I think I know what that thing was--I think I have it."

"What do you mean?" I asked, astonished at her and at her manner--and her words.

"I'm not going to tell you what I mean. Only I'm sure of what I'm saying--at least, that the thing _is_ valuable, worth risking a great deal for. I learned that from experts this morning, while you and your aunt were thinking about hats."

For an instant I was completely bewildered. Then, suddenly, a strange idea sprang into my mind:

"That brocade bag you picked up in the Rue d'Hollande last night!"

It was the first time I had thought of it from that moment to this--there had been so many other things which seemed more important.

Lisa looked annoyed. I think she had counted on my not remembering, or not connecting her hints with the thing she had found in the street, and that she had wanted to tantalise me.

"I won't say whether I mean the brocade bag or not, and whether, if I do, that I believe Ivor dropped it, or whether there was another man mixed up in the case--perhaps the real murderer. If I _do_ decide to tell what I know and what I suspect, it won't be to you--unless for a very particular reason--and it won't be yet awhile."